IBM Venture Capital Group’s Drew Clark’s Predictions for 08

Venturebeat has been gathering investment predictions from some top VCs and posting them on their site. I found the views of Drew Clark, Director of Strategy, Emerging Markets (IBM Venture Capital Group) to confirm what many of us already know but if you’re not in technology you may want to review what he sees for 08. This is what he said in his op-ed piece:

Green Datacenter. The “greening” of the datacenter will continue to be a top priority for corporations as the cost of simply powering the center begins to exceed the cost of the servers and devices in it. Key drivers to help reduce the overall carbon footprint and run more efficient centers will include intelligent sensors and advanced analytics to monitor and improve equipment utilization to reduce downtime and provide comprehensive operational visibility. Green datacenters are also increasingly becoming part of corporate social responsibility campaigns, so expect increased focus here.

Alternative Energy/Cleantech. In 2008, global interest in cleantech will continue to grow as competitive players emerge in unexpected geographies outside the United States. Beyond investment in alternative energy, there will be a great demand for technologies that allow energy consumers (businesses and homeowners) and producers (utilities) to monitor, manage, distribute and use energy more efficiently. Look for more investment in companies in the areas of energy efficiency, advanced water management, intelligent utility networks, energy caching and storage, and demand-side conservation and smart metering tools.

Digital Convergence/Communications. Expect to see more investment in wireless services that exploit emerging 4G capabilities such as smartphones with broadband data coupled with embedded GPS, as well as technologies like VoIP, WiMAX, and SIP. The next three years will be the tipping point at which a large number of enterprises move beyond proof-of-concept and begin to deploy these kinds of technologies.

The Mobile, Wireless (and Social) Web. Industry analysts are predicting that by 2010 there will be 1 billion people (almost a third of the world’s population) accessing the Web via a mobile screen. This is obviously game-changing. The social-community-based approach of Web 2.0 will increasingly become part of this mobile landscape in 2008. Ultimately, mobile communities can be connected with location-based services. You’ll not only be able to access a person’s MySpace or Facebook entry, but you’ll also be able to find out where they are–if they want to be found.

SaaS, Web as Platform & Cloud Computing. Software as a service (SaaS) is fast becoming a viable option in more markets, and larger enterprises are now evaluating where service-based delivery may provide value. Meanwhile, leading-edge companies are evaluating Web-based platforms that provide service-based access to a range of infrastructure services, information, applications, and business processes. As these Google-like “clouds” evolve and mature over the next 2-3 years, we’ll begin to see them strongly influence the next phase in enterprise datacenter architecture.

Web 2.0 Mashups & Composite Apps. Web mashups are fast becoming the dominant model for the creation not just of so-called “situational apps” but of full-blown composite enterprise applications built on leading-edge SOA (service-oriented architecture) foundations. Small and medium businesses, as well as enterprise customers are now formulating enterprise mashups. Widgets, small reusable programs based on Web 2.0 techniques, are rapidly emerging as the reusable, loosely-coupled components of the programmable Web. 2008 will be the year when we begin to see SOA join forces with increasingly popular Web 2.0 standards and technologies in the enterprise. Combining Web 2.0 for the agility and ease-of-use it brings to applications and services, and SOA for the rigor and governance it instills across the enterprise, is surely the best of all worlds.

eBays Meg Whitman to retire

We’ve been hearing that Meg Whitman will be retiring for the past few months but it seems we won’t have to wait to hear the news much longer. John Battelle says it will be happening in 3 weeks and that John Donahoe will be replacing her.

Meg’s been great for eBay but it’s time for a new leader and some changes at the auction site.  The site needs a makeover as it’s been getting too cluttered and security concerns need to be addressed.

iPod – fix it yourself

Last week the sad face came up on my iPod for the first time. It had been acting a big quarkey lateley but o’no not the sad face ! I ran off to the Apple store for help. When I got there the white brick decided that it would not even show the sad face – no booting, nothing – so all they could say to me was -” it can’t be fixed, you can upgrade”  Well, I’d love to upgrade but I thought there’s gotta be a way.  I had faith that I could do something about making it function. I went online to CrunchGear and low and behold, they had instructions on how to possibly save the old white brick. I solved my problem. I did not have to take it apart – all I had to do was push in the back of the iPod so that the achilles heel (the hard disk) got pushed back into place. At least that worked for me. I’m a happy camper for the moment and I’ll wait a bit to upgrade.  For all of you who don’t know about the site go to

www.crunchgear.com and look up How to fix an ipod that won’t boot

Good Luck!

Vuzix Pushes the envelope with iWear

One company with some really great products is Vuzix (www.vuzix.com).  They showed at CES and had a large audience. If your traveling, you’ll want to bring along a pair of their iWear glasses for viewing your iPod or laptop movies, videos, or games.  You can actually squeeze a 42″ or 62″ monitors into your briefcase. Check it out!

Position of 900 Satellites

This is a NASA site that tracks over 900 Satellites currently orbiting the earth. It is an interactive Java applet.  Take a look:

http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/3D/JTrack3D.html

IS SIP HERE TO STAY?

Will it be SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)?  A lot of big companies use the protocol for videoconferencing, IM, push to talk, and more – so people are wondering if this will stick as TCP/IP did.  Some think it’s too early in the adoption process while others are running to assure the standard. It’s got great momentum as manufacturers enable SIP devices and Microsoft and Cisco support the protocol. There’s lots of discussion going on and I’m one who thinks it’s got legs and think that the stakeholders are betting on it being the standard.  What are your thoughts?  Check out GigaOM comments today: http://gigaom.com

Ustream.tv – very cool!

Ustream.tv, it’s a free streaming platform for casters of all kinds.  If you’re into dorkdom you’ll enjoy seeing and listening to Leo Laporte and Chris Pirillo ( http://ustream.tv/channel/leo-laporte-live, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris-pirillo-live) or any other subject matter that you might fancy viewing. You can start your own cast pretty simply and partner with others to broadcast together at the same time if you want – very cool!

Check it out and Happy WEBCASTERING  in 2008.

The Semantic Web

Learn about semantic search

Cisco’s Chief Development Officer Leaves for Silver Lake Partners!

Charles Giancarlo, Cisco Systems Inc.’s chief development officer and heir-apparent to CEO John Chambers, resigned Thursday to join the investment firm Silver Lake Partners. With the capabilities of IP there’s a lot happening with telephony, software and IT. Silver Lake owns Avaya, IPC Communications and a number of other interesting tech companies. They really get the big picture of where things are going in the world of IT and Telephony conversion. Seems like Charles Giancarlo liked what he heard. Your thoughts!

Anne Zelenka at GigaOm writes about using WordPress

Comments from Blogcasting news:

Anne Zelenka at GigaOm writes about using WordPress as a social networking platform – interesting comments:

“In contrast to social networking, blogging offers a person-centric way for individuals to come online. A social network like Facebook gives you your own place online, but it’s not really your own place. As Copyblogger Brian Clark recently said in a blog post, “For me, there’s really no appeal in spending a lot of time creating ‘user-generated’ content via a social networking application. That’s like remodeling the kitchen in a house you rent.”

Clark was responding to an ongoing conversation launched by blogger and cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, who proposed that blogging is far more important to him than social networking. Bloggers including Stowe Boyd and Darren Rowse seconded the idea. This growing disenchantment with social networking and return to blogging suggests that in the future we could see a migration, at least among tech bloggers, towards more distributed social networking — along the lines of what Messina envisions.”

In addition to Messina’s project, another WordPress social network project to watch is Andy Peatling’s BuddyPress. The goal for BuddyPress is to completely transform a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a fully functional social network platform.

The idea of opening up social networking so that anyone can build a social network makes sense. Web publishing has evolved from being something only big organizations could do to something that everyone can do. Audio and video publishing are doing the same thing, evolving into things that anyone can do. It looks like building social networks will follow this path, too.